JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
COMPANION: ELDER CORDON
ASSISTANTS
ASSISTANTS
What a week!
Monday:Pday
Tuesday:Ocala (southern border of mission, Spanish area)
Wednesday: Kingsland Georgia (Northern border of the mission)
Thursday: West Side of Jacksonville (across the St. John's River which is HUGE, by the way)
Friday&Saturday: Teaching up a storm!
Sunday: Church, best lessons EVER, many meetings.
This week! Tomorrow we go back to the west side. Wednesday we are in Lake City (western edge of the mission, deep-south country-style place) for a mission conference with THE Elder Anderson. The Apostle one. Then on Thursday we're going to the Orlando temple! Then on Sunday Donna is getting Baptized!!!!!!!
Yep. Donna. January 18th. It's the must-see event of the season. Get pumped.
So let's see. Ocala had some good stories.
1) The Elders we work with in Ocala are actually Spanish missionaries. So I got there and definitely remember NOTHING from 17 months ago in Valley Center. Which was mostly fine, until the end of the night when we go to see one of their investigators. They invited us in and took opus into their backyard. There were at least 30 people there. Everyone was speaking in Spanish and I just smiled really big and nodded. Also, it was in the 30's with a lot, a LOT of humidity. And we had our short-sleeved white shirts and slacks. They handed my companion food, and he was shaking so bad from the cold that it went flying everywhere. Then all of a sudden everyone circled up and started chanting, taking flowers and laying them down in a circle one by one. It was quite the experience. It last half an hour. We turned blue. Apparently it's called a rosary? It was a beautiful display of family unity and faith, which I should have been thinking about more than imagining the Hoth scene from The Empire Strikes Back. Then they asked my companion to speak. He stood up and spoke in Spanish for a little while and everyone cheered! I wasn't sure what he said but I would have clapped except that I was worried that my hands would shatter like when you dip a rose in liquid nitrogen and drop it on the floor.
It was pretty cold.
2) We tracted into two young black ladies who yelled that they were lesbian and hated my face! A little personal. We taught them the restoration and when we left they gathered up all their friends and family and introduced them all to us and prayed with us and they committed to read the Book of Mormon and come to church. My companion looked a little nervous at that part. 10 black lesbians in a Spanish branch in Ocala. That'll be a good service.
3) Georgia is a whole other place. Imagine your life. Now imagine your life without buildings. Now Take away the roads, the lights, and add about a billion trees. Now imagine fried chicken and pick-up trucks. Now take that life and put everything into super-slow motion. That's Georgia. Nicest people in the world. Holy cow they are nice. They even tell you to get lost nicely. It's like a cliche comedy that makes fun of small towns. They're so nice! We had a meeting and some random man walked into the church, sat down in our meeting, and just looked around with a big smile on his face. His name is JR. He saw the church as he was walking by and just wanted to come in for a service. It was Wednesday and apparently every church in the world except ours has some kind of service on Wednesdays. So we stopped the meeting and taught him for an hour instead. Pray for JR I guess!
4) It snowed on the west side! Bet you didn't think it snowed in Florida. Usually it does not. Holy Cow it's been cold. And of course today it's too hot to even wear long sleeves. Life.
5) I'm not entirely sure what else we did. Got seven investigators to play in the stake basketball tournament on Saturday. That was awesome. Six came to church! Taught many, many people the gospel. Not all who wander are lost, but I usually am. I bought a GPS and try not to zone out as much when I'm not driving though, so hopefully that will improve. Car naps are a hard sacrifice but you gotta do what you gotta do!
Hope that's enough stories. There are a lot of stories. A LOT. Hehehee. Yeah.
One of my favorite events from the week was a lesson we had on the Book of Mormon. In Alma 32:40 it says, "looking forward with an eye of faith". Sometimes the answer isn't right under our noses. Sometimes we have to look ahead for the rewards. But then it says what those rewards are:
Sweet above all that is sweet, white above all that is white, pure above all that is pure.
For so long, I had to look a long way forward. A long way. All do. All of us have the blessing of learning experientially and not simply intellectually the process of adapting our desires to appreciate our lives, and not demanding our lives adapt themselves to our desires. Everything from God is good, and all comes from God. A lack of happiness comes from a twisted or poorly defined sense of pleasure, and not a lack of blessings. All experience is blessing. All things are for our good. All supports our joy. When we are not joyous, it is because we have an infantile capacity to appreciate and to love, not because God has an inadequate capacity or temperament to bless. So sometimes, we are given opportunities to grow or love or learn in a way that we have not yet learned to appreciate. What a blessing that is.
As we learn though, it is no sin to look forward. It is no shame to anticipate with fascination what is coming. It will be sweet above all that is sweet. It will be white above all that is white. It will be pure above all that is pure.
Do you want it? Do you crave it? Does it make your skin tingle and your heart pound and your eyes unfocused and your fingers tense and your mouth dry and your knees tremble and your head spin? Can you feel it just barely beyond your reach? Do you groan as you stretch a little farther? Good. GOOD! I want it! I have it. I need more of it!
Verse 35 says, "O then, is not this real?"
It is real. Every word of it is real. Every whisper, every revelation, every prophecy, every direction, every promise, every miraculous modicum of majesty. It is the most real thing I have ever known. It is the most substantial effect in the realm of my experience. I know it. I live it. I love it.
This week has been pure and white. It has been sweet. In the next six days we will go to the temple; the Holy House of God. We will meet with an Apostle, a special witness of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will baptize Donna, a daughter of our Father in Heaven. Sometimes I have to ask "O then, is not this real?" I fall to my knees in intemperate adoration every time I realize that yes, YES! It is.
I love being a missionary. I love it.
~Elder Jorgensen
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I forgot to address this in the last letter: We actually have a TON of music, so no needs there. Thank you though!
Being an assistant is different. I think the perception is that we have all these responsibilities that we fulfill while other missionaries are proselyting. This is a false concept. We have a ton of responsibilities that we fulfill while other missionaries are planning, studying, sleeping, or eating. I'd say that just regular missionary work wise, we spend as much time proselyting as anyone else and our key indicators average about triple the mission average. It's incredible how much there is to do! And it's only limited by your creativity! President Craig has given the assistants pretty much free-reign. We go wherever we want and do whatever we want. We come up with our own projects and focuses and just sort of run things. It is a lot. A. Lot. But it's a lot of fun too! I'm settling in. We sleep less and eat a lot of fast food because that's just what there's time for and if I get the chance to really study it's usually in the car. I haven't gotten to work with any new missionaries yet, but transfers is next week so I'll get to meet a new batch.
Now, most important:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY COURTNEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You
turned 9 on the 9th! Golden Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!! Was it
fantastic??????? I love you so much! Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!! I miss
you lots and lots.
I hope your week was amazing.
Love,
~Elder Jorgensen